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Saturday, October 10, 2009

I Am Not Typing This Blog Post

I am not typing this blog post. Instead, I'm using a program called MacSpeech Dictate. I'm wearing a microphone headset, like Madonna or something, and I'm speaking into it what I wanted to type.

I just started using this program last night, and so far it's going pretty well. APL decided it would be a good idea to try out one of these dictation program so that I could use my hands a little bit less. I'm not certain that this program is going to work for formal things, as you have to say the punctuation marks that you want to use out loud. It's a little bit awkward and I think it will take some getting used to. It also wasn't exactly cheap, I think it cost about $200. But if I can take my law school reading notes this way, it'll save me hours of typing which will hopefully help my hands hurt a little bit less.

The program isn't perfect. Sometimes it misunderstands what you want to say. For example, last night when I said APL's name out loud, it typed "awesomely cheap." Also, since you have to say the punctuation marks you want to use out loud, I have no idea how you actually get it to type those words...

As you can see by those three periods above, every time I said the word. It used a punctuation mark but I couldn't get it to write the word. It this making no sense? I can get it to type the word by saying something like "there was a period in my life when" but otherwise if I say the word. It puts a. I know this paragraph made no sense whatsoever. I'm still learning how to use all of this.

But, for the most part I'm really happy with the software so far. I think all work especially well for taking notes when I'm reading as that essentially consists of copying things out of the book anyways. Although, I have to admit I feel a little bit strange sitting alone in my room talking to my computer. Especially since I have to say all the punctuation marks I want to use out loud. But, I think once I get used to it, the hours of typing that I save using this software will probably have my hands hurting a lot less.

1 comment:

"Awesomely Cheap" = Hilarious!!! I love the vision of you sitting in a room saying, "What did I do today question mark" to yourself, but probably because I grew up listening to my dad dictate (paragraph).